The Radiant Fear of the Rescued
Introduction: The School of Hard Knocks
We live in an age that is terrified of all the wrong things. Men fear losing their jobs, they fear what the government might do next, they fear a virus, they fear what their neighbors think of them, and they fear being on the wrong side of the latest cultural stampede. This is a servile, cringing, craven fear. It is the fear of a slave, not the fear of a son. But the Bible commends to us an entirely different kind of fear. It is a robust, clean, and liberating fear. It is the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. And this fear, paradoxically, is the only pathway out of all our other fears.
This psalm, Psalm 34, is a great case study in this. The superscription tells us it is a psalm of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed. This refers to the incident in 1 Samuel 21 where David, on the run from Saul, feigned madness before the king of Gath. He was in a tight spot, to put it mildly. He was a fugitive, his life was in constant peril, and he was forced to act the part of a lunatic to save his own skin. This is not a man writing from a comfortable study, composing abstract theology. This is a man who has known visceral, gut-wrenching dread. And it is out of that very real experience that he teaches us the fundamental lesson of the Christian life: God delivers those who fear Him.
David learned his theology in the school of hard knocks, which is the only accredited seminary God runs. And the curriculum is simple: cry out to God in your trouble, and He will deliver you. This deliverance then becomes the foundation for a life of glad-hearted, robust fear of the Lord. The world thinks freedom is found in casting off all fear. The Bible teaches that true freedom is found in having the one right fear, which then expels all the wrong ones. In these verses, David gives us a four-part testimony of how this works. He shows us the transaction, the transformation, the testimony, and the protection that comes when a man learns to fear God rightly.
The Text
I inquired of Yahweh, and He answered me, And delivered me from all that I dread. They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces will never be humiliated. This poor man called out, and Yahweh heard him And saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of Yahweh encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them.
(Psalm 34:4-7 LSB)
The Divine Transaction (v. 4)
We begin with the foundational exchange, the basic transaction of prayer.
"I inquired of Yahweh, and He answered me, And delivered me from all that I dread." (Psalm 34:4)
Notice the straightforward, business-like nature of this. David sought. God answered. God delivered. This is the basic covenantal pattern. God has made promises, and He invites us to come and collect on them. Prayer is not sending a wistful note into the cosmic void, hoping someone might find it. It is presenting a signed check at the bank of heaven. David "inquired" of Yahweh. He went to the source. He didn't just worry; he directed his worry God-ward.
And God "answered" him. This is crucial. The God of the Bible is a speaking God. He is not the silent, impersonal force of deism. He engages with His people. The entire universe was created by His speech, and it is sustained by that same speech. When we pray, we are entering into a conversation that He Himself initiated.
The result of this transaction was deliverance. And notice the scope of it: "from all that I dread." The Hebrew word for dread here points to things that cause terror or alarm. It is not a mild anxiety. It is the kind of fear that grips you when you are cornered, when the enemy is at the gates, when you are at the mercy of a pagan king. David is testifying that God's deliverance is total. He doesn't just trim the edges of our fears; He gets us out of the whole mess. This is not to say that a Christian will never feel fear again. Rather, it means that God answers the root issue. He delivers us from the ultimate objects of our dread, which are death and condemnation. Once those are dealt with at the cross, all lesser fears are put on a leash.
The Radiant Transformation (v. 5)
Next, David broadens the lesson from his personal experience to a general principle for all of God's people.
"They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces will never be humiliated." (Psalm 34:5)
This is one of the most beautiful descriptions of conversion in all of Scripture. The action is simple: "They looked to Him." This is the essence of faith. It is turning the gaze of your soul away from your troubles, away from your own inadequacies, and fixing it upon the living God. It is the look of the Israelites to the bronze serpent (Num. 21:9). It is not a work we do; it is a simple, dependent gaze.
And the effect is instantaneous and profound: they "were radiant." The word means to shine, to be bright with joy and life. This is the opposite of the downcast, gloomy, shame-faced demeanor of the world. When a soul looks to Christ, the light of His glory is reflected in them. As Paul says, "we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18). The Christian life is a life of reflected glory. We do not generate our own light; we are moons that shine with the light of the Son.
The promise that follows is a mighty comfort: "And their faces will never be humiliated." The world is full of shame. People are ashamed of their past, ashamed of their failures, ashamed of who they are. But in Christ, all our shame was borne by Him on the tree. He was humiliated so that we would never have to be. Therefore, we can come before God with boldness, not because of our own righteousness, but because we are clothed in His. Our faces are radiant because they are turned toward Him, and He will never, ever turn His face away from us.
The Humble Testimony (v. 6)
David then returns to his own story, but he does so in a way that makes it the story of every humble believer.
"This poor man called out, and Yahweh heard him And saved him out of all his troubles." (Psalm 34:6)
He refers to himself as "this poor man." This is not false modesty. This is the fundamental posture of everyone who comes to God for salvation. We do not come as qualified applicants with a strong resume. We come as beggars. We come as the poor in spirit, who know they have nothing to offer (Matt. 5:3). This is the great inversion of the gospel. God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). The entrance requirement for the kingdom of God is to be destitute.
And what does this poor man do? He "called out." This is the cry of desperation. This is not a polite, formal request. This is a shout for help from a man who knows he is going under. And the promise is that Yahweh hears that cry. He is attentive to the voice of the lowly. The proud, self-sufficient man mutters to himself, and God lets him be. The poor man cries out to heaven, and the ear of the King of the universe inclines to him.
The result, again, is comprehensive salvation: "saved him out of all his troubles." God's salvation is not a partial rescue. He doesn't just throw you a life preserver; He pulls you into the boat, wraps you in a warm blanket, and takes you all the way to shore. This is the testimony of every true believer. I was poor, I cried out, and the Lord saved me. It is the simple, powerful, and unchanging story of grace.
The Divine Protection (v. 7)
Finally, David reveals the mechanism of this constant deliverance and protection.
"The angel of Yahweh encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them." (Psalm 34:7)
This is a staggering promise. The "angel of Yahweh" in the Old Testament is often a theophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ Himself. But whether it is Christ or a mighty angelic messenger sent by Him, the point is the same. The Lord provides an active, military-grade, personal security detail for His people. This is not a vague, sentimental notion of a guardian angel. This is the language of warfare. The angel "encamps" around the saints. This means he sets up a military perimeter, a fortified camp. We are living in occupied territory, and the commander of the Lord's armies has established a garrison to protect us.
And who qualifies for this protection? "Those who fear Him." Here we come full circle. The fear of the Lord is not the cowering dread that David was delivered from in verse 4. This is a filial, reverent, worshipful awe. It is the clean fear that loves God's law and hates sin. It is the fear that says, "God is a consuming fire, and I am so glad to be warmed by it and not consumed by it." This is the fear that leads to wisdom, and it is the fear that qualifies us for divine protection.
The world seeks protection in armies, in wealth, in political power. But the believer's confidence is in this unseen reality. We are surrounded. Elisha's servant was terrified by the Syrian army until the Lord opened his eyes to see the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire (2 Kings 6:17). We are far safer than we feel. The angel of the Lord is on duty, and his job description is simple: to rescue those who fear God.
Conclusion: Taste and See
What David lays out for us here is the engine of the Christian life. We begin in trouble, gripped by all the wrong fears. In our poverty, we cry out to God. He hears, and He answers, delivering us from all that we dread. This deliverance is not just a change in our circumstances; it is a change in us. We look to Him, and our faces become radiant with His reflected glory, free from all shame.
This personal experience then becomes our public testimony: I was a poor man, but the Lord saved me. And this life of faith is lived out under the constant, vigilant protection of the angel of the Lord, who encamps around all those who have learned the secret of the clean fear.
The world around us is enslaved to a thousand craven fears precisely because it refuses this one, liberating fear. They will not have God as their fear, and so they must have everything else as their fear. But for us, the path is clear. We are to cultivate this glad and holy fear. We are to remember our deliverance. We are to keep looking to Him, so that our faces might remain radiant. And we are to live with the quiet confidence of those who know they are surrounded, not by enemies, but by the armies of heaven.